St. Mary’s Episcopal Church

The Book of Genesis has two stories about the creation of the world. These stories are not meant to be science or history, but that doesn’t mean they don’t contain truth. They contain a lot of truth, really important truth that we need to remember: theological truths, moral truths, ontological truths, truth about who we are.

Our first reading today comes from the second creation story. But before we talk about that, we need to talk about the first creation story because these two stories are in dialogue with each other. They are in conversation, and we can’t understand one if we don’t understand the other.

You know how the first creation story begins in the First Chapter of Genesis: In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was Tohu Vavohu, a Hebrew word that only shows up here. Scholars, because they cannot cross reference this word, have some good guesses. It’s something like a formless void, or welter and waste, or primordial chaos. Into that chaos God is making order. God is taking all this stuff and creating objects, creating creatures that have their own being, their own identity, their own separation, their own boundaries. God makes light. God makes water and sky. God makes land. God makes sun, moon, and stars. God makes birds and all the sea creatures and all the land animals. This all takes about six days, according to the story. At the end of each day, God looks over his creation and says, it is good. It is good. It is oh, so very good, God even says on some of those days. And on the sixth day, the last of the land creatures that God made was humanity. You and me. And it says that when God made humanity, he made it in God’s very image. It also says that when God made humanity, God invited, or perhaps we should say God commanded, us to be stewards of the rest of creation, to care for it.

That is the first creation story. In this story there are so many truths for us. I would reckon that we focus on this first creation story more than the second one. I think it is meet and right for us to focus on this story because there are some important truths that we need to remember. We need to remember that in all the chaos of life, God is in the midst of it and God is at work. God is continuing to create, God is continuing to bring things together, God is continuing to bring order out of the chaos.

We need to remember and keep before us the truth that we are made in God’s image. You are made in God’s image. When you look in the mirror in the morning, you are staring at the image of God. That might be a hard truth for some of us to realize and accept. We might not feel so good about that image. There are a few gray hairs, a few age spots are appearing. But we need to be reminded that we are made in God’s image, as is all of humanity. That means your neighbor is made in God’s image. So if you look to your left and look to your right, that is the image of God. That person, the neighbor next to you, is the image of God. We need to hold that truth in front of us. That also means that our enemy is made in the image of God. That is the hardest one of all, isn’t it? The person who makes your blood boil, they, too, are made in the image of God. So we need to treat ourselves, and our neighbors, and our enemies with the respect and dignity that that God-bearer is worthy of. That is truth we need to remember when we read this first creation account.

We also need to remember that we must care for God’s creation. We must be stewards. We are at a point in humanity’s ability and power that we can destroy creation in ways we have never been able to before. We need to remember that is not God’s vision, God’s dream. God’s vision for us is not to consume or destroy creation. God’s vision is for creation to nourish us, and we are to nourish it, to be caretakes and stewards of that creation. These are important truths that we need to hold up in front of us, all the time.

But there is the second creation story. It is saying, I have things I want to add to this conversation. These additions to the conversation are not necessarily in conflict. For instance, the second creation story reinforces the message that we are to be stewards of creation. Both creation stories say that. But the second creation story also says, all right, Mr. First Creation Story, you think that God is making order out of chaos. But what about the chaos I still see all around me? Are you telling me my eyes are lying, that I don’t see all the pain and suffering that still exists in this world? The second creation story is making things a little more complicated.

The second creation story is also saying, OK, you may be made in the image of God, but let me tell you a story about taking that a little bit too far by trying to be like God. The second creation story is saying it is OK to remember that you are made in the image of God, but you are not God. That is an important distinction the second creation story is making. You may be made in God’s image, but you are not God. It is a distinction not unlike having a good healthy self esteem or being a narcissist. You are made in God’s image. Do not forget that fact. But also remember you are not God. Let God be God and you be you. You are the one who carries God’s image, but don’t put yourself in God’s place. The second creation story is offering this corrective by saying if you take this too far, it might go off the rails.

In the first creation story, everything that was made was good. The second creation story confirms that, but it also says there is still bad. While you may be good deep in your core, that doesn’t mean we don’t fall short of the dream, the vision, the mark that God has set. Falling short of the mark, falling short of the dream that God has is called sin. I know we don’t like to use that word all that much, but it is an important one to remember. Every single person is good, and yet sometimes we don’t live up to that. The whole point is not to make you feel shame, but to say, come back to that good. Keep trying, because you are good, and you can do good things.

So, my friends, hold these two stories up before you. Don’t just pick one, but hold both of them up. Remember your goodness. Remember that you are made in God’s image. Remember that God is at work in this world bringing order out of chaos. Remember to be a good steward of God’s creation. But also remember that sometimes we miss the mark, and when we do, try again. For as it says in the Psalm, there is plenteous redemption in the Lord. God’s mercy and God’s grace abound. We may be prone to wander, as a good old hymn writer put it, but remember that grace is amazing, as another hymn writer wrote. Keep trying. Keep coming back, remembering the goodness of the Lord. Remember that you are made in God’s image, as is your neighbor and your enemy. Treat them with the respect worthy of that image, but don’t try and be God. Let God be God, and you be you. Because God loves you without question, without reservation. God made you in love and God loves you more than you can ask for, or begin to imagine.

AMEN.

Ah, Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a leader of the Jews in Jerusalem. He was a teacher, a member of the Sanhedrin. He was also a Pharisee, so as such would have been part of the group who felt so threatened by Jesus’ increasing popularity that some of them set about plotting to have him arrested and executed, thus eliminating once and for all this troublesome rabble rouser from Galilee. But Nicodemus was different. While apparently maintaining appearances among his colleagues around the temple, Nicodemus was intrigued by what Jesus had to say. Sadly, he couldn’t admit that to anyone because unlike Peter and Andrew, James and John, he had something to lose by openly claiming to be a follower of Jesus that they never had to worry about: status. Nicodemus was a well-respected leader, one of the in-crowd at the temple. Admitting that what Jesus was teaching made sense would have cost him his standing among his peers.

So Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, wanting to talk to this remarkable young man who was attracting so much attention, but without any of his fellow Pharisees knowing about it. Unfortunately in the conversation that ensues, Nicodemus comes across a bit like a Biblical literalist talking to an Episcopalian. When Jesus tells him that “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above,” Nicodemus completely misses the “from above” part, wanting to know instead how someone can be born again after having grown old. You can almost hear Jesus slapping his forehead as he thinks to himself, Geez this guy’s supposed to be one of the smart ones! But Jesus goes on to try to clarify that what is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. He then uses an analogy, comparing being born of the Spirit to the wind. You can hear the wind, he says, you can feel it, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it’s going. That’s how it is with someone born of the Spirit. You may feel their effect on you, they may move you to do all manner of good things, but it won’t be obvious from whence comes their power. Poor, literal Nicodemus is baffled. How can these things be?

How can these things be? We understand the wind. We know what causes it. We know we can’t control it though sailors have known for millennia how to use it to power their vessels large and small. Nowadays more and more places are using it to generate electricity. But the Spirit, what do we really understand about this third person of the Trinity? We believe the Creator God, God the Father in older language, is the force that brought into being all that is. We believe that over time, after life evolved into human form and those humans became less and less what God might have hoped for, God sent Jesus, not to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through him. Notice how that’s worded. It doesn’t say that by living among us Jesus saved the world, but rather that by coming into the world Jesus made it possible for the world to be saved. In other words, there is still work to be done, and we, the people who profess to be followers of Jesus, empowered by the Spirit in the same way the wind powers a sailboat, are the ones who have to do it. Which in some respects brings us back to Nicodemus. Do we have the nerve to live our faith in the light of day, or do we feel the need to simply lurk about trying to be faithful Christians in the dark?

 It’s hard these days to be open about much of anything. It seems as though more and more people see the world in terms of us and them, where they, whoever they may be, are seen as the enemy, people to be feared. We tip toe around each other, afraid to say anything that might “set off” someone we suspect, we may not even know for sure, has a perspective different from our own. This is not how Jesus taught us to live. Rather ,Fear not! is what Jesus said over and over again, and he meant it! We simply have to be able to talk with each other. Self-segregating into little pockets of like-minded people only makes everything worse. Back in 1991, following a truly horrible diatribe about homosexuality at a Diocesan Convention, the Diocesan Committee on Human Sexuality was formed. A year later this group presented to the diocese a five part program intended for use during Lent, 1993, entitled Sexuality: God’s Good Gift. I was attending a small church at that time which has since closed, that was located in a very conservative community. It will likely come as no surprise, given how small the church was, that I was asked to facilitate this Lenten program. Okay, so I was comfortable about leading the first three sessions, but the fourth addressed Gay and Lesbian Sexuality. I knew beforehand this entire program would be challenging for many members of that congregation, so I was genuinely nervous about how that particular session would be received. Nonetheless, the vicar asked a lesbian friend to participate that evening, which she agreed to do. People listened and participated - we had very strict rules about engaging in dialogue not debate - and at the end of the evening a man whom I liked and respected greatly though I knew we had different perspectives on many things came up to me and said, “You know, there’s a kind of joke I’ll never tell again.” Wow, I thought to myself as I drove home utterly exhausted, this program actually is making a difference. Conversations around sexuality have continued to evolve over time. Many people’s attitudes have changed. Ten years after I led that program the Episcopal Church ordained our first openly gay bishop in 2003, and twelve years after that at General Convention in Salt Lake City in 2015 we approved rites for blessing same sex marriages within days of the Supreme Court declaring same sex marriage legal. While many of us felt that day that great progress had been made in terms of allowing people to live out their sexuality as is right for them, not everyone shared that perspective. While the vote to approve the marriage rites was by orders and was overwhelmingly in favor of doing so, the vote was not unanimous. There were a few dioceses within the United States as well as most of our off shore dioceses in Central and South America as well as Asia who were opposed. Still, the next morning there was only one deputation who we discovered had left the convention, minus one member who chose to stay. All the other deputations continued to be part of us, even though we had different perspectives on that particular issue. We need to be able to function like that now in society at large with regard to the many challenging issues that confront us.

 The question of course is how? There's no doubt the world has changed dramatically since 2015. The ability to have a calm discussion during which differing perspectives are shared seems to be a dying art. Conversations, be they public or private, seem to devolve much more quickly these days into arguments where each side is determined to prove the other side wrong, rather than opportunities to share differing perspectives that over time might lead if not to agreement, as least to understanding and acceptance of each other as good people with different views. While human sexuality is certainly still a topic that garners plenty of attention, racism, which is linked closely to immigration, the use of vaccines that was thrust into the limelight during the pandemic, the nightmarish situation in Gaza are just some of the issues that seem to divide us into opposing camps in 2024. As it did with human sexuality, the Church has tried to make a difference where it can. I’m currently participating in Sacred Ground, a program produced by the Episcopal Church in an effort to get white people to understand just how pervasive racism is in our country and to recognize our often unwitting participation in it. It’s an excellent program, one that has prompted me to examine how I was raised, what I was taught, and how all of that influences how I live my life today. It is very much designed to get me and others to step out of the dark into the glaring light of today’s conflict-ridden world, to find the courage to move from being spectators of what’s happening in the world to people willing to speak and act in an effort to make a difference. While this course is addressing racism, I would like to think that what I’m learning in that context will carry over into other areas of my life as well.

 On the dreadful day of Jesus’ crucifixion Nicodemus joined Joseph of Arimathea in burying Jesus’ body, bringing over a hundred pounds of spices to include when they wrapped the body in the burial shroud. Beyond that very compassionate act, which was done in secret out of fear of how the Jewish authorities might respond, we don’t how Nicodemus lived out the rest of his life. Did he believe and acknowledge that Jesus rose from the dead, or did he go along with the party line that clearly some of Jesus’ followers must have stolen the body? Did he try to walk a sort of existential tightrope, doing his best to follow the teachings of Jesus as far as he could while at the same time keeping up appearances around the temple, or did he at some point openly identify himself as a follower of Jesus? There’s no way we can ever know. What we do know is that enough people have openly followed Jesus teachings down through time to keep them alive over 2000 years after Jesus walked the earth. Will the principles that we hold dear, that we reaffirm every time we recite the baptismal covenant, still be important to anyone ten, twenty, a hundred years from now? That depends on whether we, and the young people learning from us how to follow Jesus, have the courage not merely to live out our faith in the light of day, but to actually be the Light of Christ in a world full of people fearfully hiding from each other in the dark. Amen.

Let us pray: Come Holy Spirit, dance in these words that we may know you better. In the name of our Mother/Father, our Brother Jesus, and the mystery of the Spirit who guides and encourages us. Amen.

Happy Pentecost! Pentekoste or 50th in Greek. Fifty days after Easter when we remember, celebrate, and renew the coming of the Holy Spirit on the first followers of Jesus. The spirit that empowered and emboldened them to share the good news of Jesus’ life, death, ascension, and resurrection. Today we wear our red or other “flamey” colors and we have our amazing streamers, bringing to life for us the Spirit’s flow. Fifty days ago we celebrated the ultimate triumph of love over evil. Jesus, God incarnate, came down to live as one of us and to give himself as an offering, the ultimate example of sacrificial love, showing us that love always has the last word, that love, ALWAYS wins. And that nothing, nothing, can separate us from the love of God demonstrated by the resurrections of Jesus. And so, our Easter acclamation from Easter Sunday and throughout this season including today is: Alleluia, Christ is risen! (The Lord is risen indeed, alleluia!).

And so, today, after the glorious resurrection, and the ascension, we now celebrate that coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. The description of this awesome event we heard about in the lesson from Acts today.

There was a sound like the rush of a violent wind and divided tongues, as of fire, appeared and rested on each of them. And all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages. And pretty soon a crowd gathered to see what was going on they were bewildered because each person heard the disciples speaking in their native language proclaiming the Good News.

What an amazing picture! These followers of Jesus, men and women, were filled with the Holy Spirit. They each got their own flame hat, and that’s not all, they could also speak whatever language the person they were talking to spoke! So they just went off sharing the good news of God’s love demonstrated in Jesus to every person gathered there from whatever place, ethnicity or language. SO COOL! The Holy Spirit gave them what they needed for that moment to share the message of God’s healing, inclusive love.

And today, the Holy Spirit continues that bewildering, inspiring work in our world and in our time in moments and contexts with specific people in our lives who need to hear how much God loves them. Who need to hear how they are forgiven, how they are valued, how they belong.

Did you know that you were baptized with the Holy Spirit just like these first disciples?

 “Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ's Body the Church” (BCP. p. 298)

During the baptism service we pray: “Fill them with your holy and life-giving Spirit” (BCP, p. 305). And: “We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.”

And: “Heavenly Father, we thank you that by water and the Holy

Spirit you have bestowed upon these your servants the

forgiveness of sin, and have raised them to the new life of

grace. Sustain them, O Lord, in your Holy Spirit” (BCP, p. 308)

And one of my favorite things is to mark the sign of the cross on peoples’ forehead with chrism and pronounce: “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever” (ibid).

In our baptism we receive this amazing power of the Holy Spirit to guide, strengthen, and comfort us on this earth. Just like these first followers of Jesus on that first Pentecost, God and has sent us the gift of the Holy Spirit.

This gift that Jesus calls the Advocate, the Spirit who speaks for us and who champions our cause. The Spirit watches over, protects and comforts us.

And the gift of the Spirit testifies to the truth of God’s goodness in Jesus, in creation from the beginning of time, and revealed in our lives whenever and wherever love shines forth. The catechism tells us that “we recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit when we…are brought into love and harmony with God, with ourselves, with our neighbors, and with all creation (BCP. p. 852).

This gift of the Spirit is our guide, helping us discern what is good and right and worthy of our time, energy, and care. And just like those first Spirit-filled disciples at the first Pentecost, the Holy Spirit is MOST definitely still at work here and now in our lives. May we, this Pentecost, recognize and receive the power of the Holy Spirit that flows within, around, and through each one of us, and so empowered, may we share the good news of a loving, liberating, life-giving God. Come Holy Spirit, come, fill our lives with an abiding sense of your presence and courage to share your love with our hurting world. Amen.

This past Thursday was the Feast of the Ascension. On Ascension we commemorate that moment when Jesus took the Disciples, 40 days after his Resurrection, out to the Mount of Olives and gave them some final words, some last wisdom, and then ascended up into heaven.

This moment was a second death for the Disciples. The first death was on Good Friday, and they had begun the process of grieving when their grief was interrupted by the Resurrection. In the following 40 days they had encounters with Jesus, wild and wonderful experiences of the Risen Lord with them in person, in the flesh. We heard many of those stories at the beginning of the Easter season. Like Easter Sunday when Mary Magdalene had the experience of encountering Jesus by the empty tomb. We heard both John and Luke’s versions of the Disciples gathered together in a locked room in their fear, and Jesus appeared among them and showed them his wounds. There are other stories, like the road to Emmaus when two Disciples were walking and Jesus appeared to them. They did not know it was him, but in the breaking of the bread they realized that Jesus had been with them that entire time. Stories like the Disciples going back to work on the Sea of Galilee, and Jesus calling them from the shore in the early morning and feeding them some freshly cooked fish. There are other stories that we don’t have. They were not recorded in the Gospels, but we do hear tell of them.

And we have this final Resurrection experience where Jesus meets the Disciples at the Mount of Olives. He says this is it. I am going back. You are not going to see me again like that. This is the second death, and the Disciples start that grieving process again. Like so many of us in grief, their first response is just to be stuck. They just stand there, looking up. It takes awhile, but finally some angels come along and say, what are you looking at? Jesus is gone. You need to get out of here.

The next thing the Disciples do is something normal as we process grief, and try to go back to the way it was before. We pretend the loss didn’t happen. We try to recreate the past, as if we could. What do the Disciples do? They say there used to be twelve of us. We lost one, that Judas guy, so let’s pick a new Judas. So they create a criteria for the next Disciple. The person had to be with them from the beginning, which I find a fascinating detail. The way I had always imagined this as a kid, was that Jesus called his twelve Disciples, and then went out and started preaching and other folks came along for the ride. But that’s not what the Acts of the Apostles says. It says there are a whole bunch of other people there from the very beginning, and one of them is going to be one of the twelve. There are so many people that there are options they can pick from. The Disciples are trying to go back. They are trying to imagine as if they could go back in time and be they way they were.

But here is the problem: you can never go back. You cannot recreate the past. What the Disciples are in is not a new beginning, but rather a liminal in-between time between the Ascension and Pentecost. Even though it is ten days, they have no idea what is going to happen. Next week we will hear the story of how the Holy Spirit came down and lit a fire underneath them to go out into the world and do all kinds of wonderful and amazing works. But they are not there yet. Right now they are in this moment of deep grief, trying to recreate what once was.

What is true for them is true for us. We do the same thing. When we have loss, we so often try to grasp at the world as it once was, whether it is the loss of a loved one, or the loss of some part of our life. We do it as a community, as a country and long for the past. We do it as a church. We long for a church that once was, the booming church of the 1950s that I have heard great things about. Or perhaps the church of the 80s or 90s, which was fantastic. The church before the pandemic, the church of February 2020 was great. I loved it. But it is gone. That ship has sailed. We can’t recreate the past. Instead, what we do is move forward

It's not that the past is completely gone, there is no discontinuity. We bring forth elements of the past, but we can’t recreate it. So what we do is build upon it. The Disciples cannot recreate what their life was like when Jesus was with them, but what they can do is move forward in faith, pulling forward the best of that life. They can keep grounded as the Holy Spirit leads them, stay grounded in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Stay grounded in the way of love that Jesus taught them and Jesus showed them through his kindness, compassion, and healing. They can pull all of that forward, but it will not look the same, it will not be the same. It will be something new and something wonderful, guided by the Holy Spirit.

You already know the ways it is going to shift because you have been hearing that story throughout this Easter season. The Lectionary does this weird thing by messing up the chronology. During the early Easter season we were hearing stories about what the early Church was like in the Acts of the Apostles, but all of those stories are after Pentecost. Now we have gone back. Thursday we heard about the Ascension, today we hear about the in-between time, and next Sunday we will hear about Pentecost. But you know what is going to happen, and that is that the Disciples will find out about the power of the Holy Spirit that will lead them in new ways. Not ways that are discontinuous from Jesus, but ways that build on what Jesus was doing. Last week we heard the story of the way Peter finally comes to realize that Jesus’s message of love, peace, justice, mercy, forgiveness, kindness, and compassion is not just for him and people like him. It is for the Gentiles also. So Peter realizes that they, too, can be baptized. God’s message of love is for all people and all creation. That is different from what they had experienced when it was just the twelve of them with Jesus. But it builds on it in ways that makes so much sense from everything that Jesus showed us.

That is the model for us as we move forward, individually, as a country, as a church. Whatever loss we have experienced, we cannot rebuild it the way it was. It is not possible. But what we can do instead is move forward in faith, continuing to follow the way of love, not as it was, but as it is. What we can do is follow the Holy Spirit and all the wonderful and wild ways the Spirit is moving in this world, lighting a fire under us to go out and bring the message of love and peace and kindness and compassion and forgiveness to a world that so desperately needs it.

The reason we try to go back and rebuild the past is because there is comfort in doing so. We are trying to fill some kind of need in our lives, but the real way to feel that need is through love. We can share that love, we can bring that love to this world that so desperately needs it. We can look for the ways the Holy Spirit is blowing, and we can follow along. Keep doing what Jesus did. Keep loving this world. Keep caring for this world, and we can join in on that good work.

AMEN.

In the Gospel today, Jesus told the Disciples I call you not servants, but friends. Friendship is important. It is important to our well being. There have been numerous studies that show friendship affects our physical health. People with more and deeper friendships live longer, and their years are filled with more good health. Friendship is also important to our psychological well being. There have been studies that show it reduces stress, increases joy, and makes us generally mentally healthier. Friendships are important to us.

The evolutionary psychologists tell us the reason is that we adapted over the years to need friends, because people with more friends survived longer in the really old days. The great theologian, Saint Aelred of Rievaulx, was the first and only theologian before the 21st century who did any work on the theology of friendship. He argued that the reason we need friendship is because God implanted the gift of friendship within us at creation. Rievaulx has a fascinating interpretation of how God implanted this need for friendship in the 2nd Chapter of Genesis, the second story of creation. Both evolutionary psychologists and theologians agree that there is something innate in us at creation, the way we were made, that needs friendship. It is important for our physical and psychological well-being, and I would argue it is important for our spiritual wellbeing as well.

The theologian, William James Jennings, did an exploration of this theology and the shift in it that allowed Christians to do horrible things, like engage in the slave trade, engage in segregation. One of his arguments is that there was a shift from a faith of the heart, a faith of relationship and connection, to a faith of the mind, going from intimacy to objectivity. When we did that, we were able to excuse all kinds of horrible things because we stopped caring with our hearts the way that Jesus taught us to do. I think that is what happens when we don’t have friendships. We are not engaged in relationship with people if we are not exercising those muscles of friendship. We turn inward and it causes all kinds of spiritual problems for us. Friendship is important for our spiritual well being as well.

One of the best things you can do for your wellbeing, physical, psychological, and spiritual, is to go and engage with your friends. Call a friend that you haven’t talked to in a while and check in and see how they are doing. It will make a difference in your life.

Jesus takes the importance of friendship to a whole new level in the Gospel today. He says not only can we be friends with each other, but we can be friends with God. This is a remarkable claim for the people first hearing this, who were interested in Greek culture and the words of Aristotle. Aristotle said that you cannot be friends with God. It is impossible. And Jesus says, no. The Father and I are one. I am in the Father and the Father is in me. We can be friends. “What a friend we have in Jesus,” as the hymn says. We can be friends with God through Christ.

What does it mean to be a friend with God? How do we become friends with God? It is no different than any other friendship. How do you make friends? How do you keep friends? The first and most important thing is show up to them. Be near them. Be in their presence. There is a study done of elementary school children that looked at friendships and proximity. They looked at friendship circles and where they sat in the classroom, and found that the number one indicator of who their friend was going to be was how close they sat to them. People on the other side of the room are not going to be as close to you as those who sit in the desk next to you. Proximity matters. We have to be present to people in order to be friends. The pandemic did a number on that. It forced us apart. We need to be with each other. We have that innate need to be with others, to be in relationship. To be friends with people we have to be present with them, to show up to them. The same thing with God. Show up to God, be present with Him. That is what you have all done this morning. You here and those online have shown up to be with God. We are trying to spend time with God. That is what friends do.

This is good. It is an hour with our friend, an hour with God. But there are 167 more hours in the week, so we could also find ways to spend time during the week with God. How do we do that? We do that in prayer, talking to God, listening to God. That is what friends do. They are in each other’s presence. They engage in things together.

Friends do other things together, like going fishing, getting coffee. You can do these things with God as well. There is a monk in France, Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, who wrote a book, shared it with his friends, but told them not to tell anybody. And what did the friends do but publish it after he died. That is fantastic for us because now we have all his writings. Brother Lawrence had an idea called “Practicing the Presence of God” where in all things you are doing you imagine God there with you. What is it like while God is there with you while you are driving the car? It’s a simple thing. It doesn’t add too much to what you are already doing. But let God be there with you and engage in relationship building. Brother Lawrence was the monastery cobbler and the cook, two jobs he absolutely hated. But he said it didn’t matter because God was with him. God made it interesting as he did all the boring tasks. So spend some time with God, not just now but throughout the week.

The second thing you need for a friendship is affection, care. You have to be interested in the person. Dare I say you need to love them, as Jesus talks about. He is connecting friendship and love because they are critical to each other. We need to care about the other person or it’s not really a friendship. One of the best things you can do for a friendship is to ask the person, how are you doing? And then listen to them actively. Not listening and thinking of what you are going to say next, but really listening to what they are saying. Support them if they need support. The same is true with our friendship with God, focusing on love. Telling God that we love Him, and looking for all the ways that God is showing His love for us. Our wonderful opening hymn this morning talks about all the gifts that God rains down on us, all signs of God’s love for us. The practice of gratitude, being able to name all the wonderful things that God is doing for us, draws us closer to God. It helps us build our friendship. Showing up and loving are what friendships are about, either with each other, or with God. So show up to each other and show up to God. Love each other, and love God.

So, my friends, I hope you will do that this week. I hope you will reach out to a friend that you have, maybe someone you have not spoken with in a while, and connect with them. Show them you love them by your interest in what they are doing. And show up to God. Have a conversation with God. Remind God that you love Him, and look for all the ways that God loves you, without reservation, without question. God loves you.

AMEN.

God loves you. God loves you, without question, without reservation. God loves you. You already know that because we preach that all the time here at St. Mary’s. We tell you that God loves you a lot. It’s usually how we end sermons, but today we are starting there.

God loves you. It is a consistent message in scripture. This reality of God’s love is for you, for me, for us, for all of humanity, for all of creation. God’s love is proclaimed time and again throughout Scripture, from the beginning in the Torah, through the Prophets and the Psalms, the Gospel, the Epistles. It is repeated time and again, sometimes explicitly, sometimes it is more implicit, but it is there over and over again.

You might think of some of those explicit moments, like in the Torah when it says God’s covenant with God’s people is a covenant of loving kindness. Or you might think about the Prophets when Isaiah and Jeremiah and several of the minor Prophets say that God’s love is everlasting. It is eternal. The Psalms are full of references of God’s abounding love for humanity and all of creation. In the Gospels there are so many good examples, but what better one than John 3:16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. My favorite comes from Paul in Romans Chapter 8, where he asks the question, what can separate us from the love of God? And the answer is, nothing. Can anything separate us from the love of God? No. For I am convinced that neither life nor death nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor heighth or depth or anything else in all of creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. I am an Episcopalian. I don’t memorize scripture, but I know this one.

There are other wonderful implicit stories of God’s love. All the stories of Jesus healing people are about love. Or his parables, like the Parable of the Prodigal Son, which is really the parable of the forgiving father who forgives before he is even asked. Think of the great stories about Ruth and Esther and Jonah. Think of the story of Moses and Miriam and the liberation of God’s people from their enslavement in Egypt. Think about the stories of Jacob and Isaac and Abraham. Think about the story of Joseph. Think about the creation story. It doesn’t say anything specific about love, but it is all about love. As God makes the world, each and every day he looks it over and says, it is good, it is good, it is very good. My favorite retelling of the Creation Story is the one that Desmond Tutu offers in a children’s Bible he put together. It says God’s love bubbled up and bubbled over into creation. God’s love cannot be contained, and that love is so enormous that it bubbled up and bubbled over into all that we see, all that we know, all that we experience, the love of God embodied in creation through God’s loving act.

God loves you. And that is the message that the author of 1st John knows as he puts it in an epistle to send to a community that is having some struggles. But John doesn’t just say that God loves you. He takes it one step further. He says not only does God love you, but God is love. Love is not just a verb, it is not just a feeling that God has for things, it is not just the actions that God takes that show love. God is love. God, in God’s very being, doesn’t just love. God is love. God’s identity is love, so God can do no other. The reason that God loves you without question or reservation is not because you did something that makes you loveable. God loves you because God’s love is at the core of God’s identity. God can do nothing but love. That love will not go away. There’s nothing you did to earn it, so there is nothing you can do to lose it.

God loves you, but the author of John takes is one step further. God is love, and that means you need to love as well. If you claim to know anything about God, that means you know that we have a God who is love. And it you claim to want to live your life in accordance with God, who is love, then you will love as well. Any form of religiosity that is filled with hate is not the way of God. Because the way of God is the way of love because God is love. Therefore you need to love as well. I think this goes back to the creation story, because it said that when God made you, God made humanity, we were made in the image of God. And if we have a God who is love, that means that you have been imprinted with the image of love. Deep down inside of you, your identity is one of love as well. To be true to who you are, to be true to what you were made to be, means that you have to love, because you were made in God’s image.

It's a lovely idea, isn’t it? And yet when we look around the world, it is not always loving. There are a lot of places where love is not clear or obvious, where God’s love does not seem to be shining. There is the thing we call sin, greed, selfishness that get in the way of that love. It doesn’t mean that love is not there, it means that it is hard to see. Sometimes it is hard to love people who are not so loveable. It can be really challenging.

In the Gospel today Jesus gives us a way forward when he offers us this beautiful and profound image of the vineyard. God the Father is the vine keeper, Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches. The branches are meant to produce fruit. Not grapes, but the fruit of love. I think today’s Gospel reading is cut a little bit short, because right after this Jesus goes into a great dissertation about the need to love. When he is talking about this fruit, he is talking about the fruit of love, that we are meant to produce love. What Jesus says is that just like in a real vine, you need to do a little bit of pruning. To prune away those rougher edges, like that selfishness or that greediness so that we can put the energy into love.

That’s why pruning works, because a plant has all kinds of energy coming into it and putting it everywhere, wasting it on things that are not producing fruit. So when you prune the bits that are wasting energy, then the fruit gets more of the energy and can grow bigger and better and more nutritious and help nourish people better. Jesus is saying that there are bits in all of our lives that can use a little bit of pruning so the fruit of love can be bigger, the crop can be more, that we can nourish our world with that love a little bit better.

So, my friends, I encourage you to take some time this week to reflect on love. God’s love, on how God is love, how you were made in His image, imprinted with love on your very soul, that in your identity is love as well. And then ask yourself the very hard question, what little bits need to be pruned so that I can produce a little more love in this world. If we do that, 1st John says, if all of us who follow Jesus tend to that garden and work on making this world a little more loving, we can show God to people. Because every time we show love we show God. Every time we put a little more love in this world, we help nourish this world on love. Maybe we can tip the balance so people can look at this world and say it is a world full of love, it is a world full of the love of God everywhere. Maybe it will help this world become more aligned with God’s dream, God’s vision, of love.

AMEN

Is there anyone who has not at one time or another asked a young person what they want to be when they grow up? Zack’s responses beginning at about age three included among other things: truck driver, heavy equipment operator, professional skate boarder, crabber on the Bering Sea, professional basketball player, and by age 12, a teacher and coach. Happily that’s the one that stuck. I honestly don’t know what my responses might have been early on, though I have vague memories from when I was a little girl of imagining myself as a doctor. However, I vividly remember the moment in eighth grade when someone asked me what I wanted to be and I instantly responded, I’m going to be a chemistry teacher. How did I know that? I hadn't even taken chemistry. I can only attribute that answer to the fact that I had spent years watching Mr. Wizard on television. Indeed, as a chemistry teacher at Sheldon I had the opportunity, along with everyone else in the science department, to attend the National Science Teachers” Convention when it was held in Seattle. One of the featured speakers was Don Herbert - Mr. Wizard. There were hundreds of us in the huge hall where he spoke, and at one point he asked how many of us had watched Mr. Wizard. Easily 80% of the hands went up. I have no idea if he set out to do so, but Don Herbert, Mr. Wizard, clearly shaped an entire generation of science teachers. So was I called by Mr. Wizard to be a chemistry teacher? Was Zack called by one or more of his teachers to become one himself? What exactly does it mean to be called?

 Our Old Testament reading this morning recounts one of the most well known stories of call in the Bible. A young boy hears a voice calling his name in the night. Thinking it’s Eli, the person under whom he was serving God, Samuel went to Eli and said here I am for you called me, to which Eli said no I didn’t. Go back to bed. This happened three times, at which point Eli realized what was happening, that God was calling Samuel, so he instructed Samuel to respond, Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. Now not very many of us have had the experience of hearing an unknown voice calling our name in the night. Or maybe we have. You’ve heard me preach and write multiple times about the fact that I know God speaks to me in my dreams. That’s only one possibility. My dad felt called to the priesthood at an early age, but then had a change of heart and decided to go into business. However, during his time in the navy during World War II he had lots of time while at sea, especially I suspect when he was alone on watch during the night, to listen to that still small voice that over time some of us come to recognize as the voice of God. He came home from the war having decided to resign from the Sun Oil Company in order to go to seminary.

 While sometimes it can seem as though God has called us directly, as often as not God speaks through those around us, as in the Gospel reading this morning in the conversation between Philip and Nathaniel. And as often as not, we’re initially rather skeptical of what someone suggests we ought to do. Nathaniel certainly was. Jesus of Nazareth?!? Are you kidding me? Has anything good every come out of Nazareth? For his part, Philip didn’t try to browbeat Nathaniel into doing anything. He simply responded, Come and see. Nathaniel did, and his life was never the same again.

 Nowadays it seems as though we most often speak of someone being called when it refers to ordained ministry. However, God calls people to all sorts of ministries that don’t involve ordination. Moreover call doesn’t only refer to being called to one’s life’s work. There are plenty of people who become exactly what they believe they were meant to be, have very successful and fulfilling careers performing their chosen line of work, but at the same time feel called to do something more, something besides their “day job” so to speak, because they see a need that they believe they can meet. Consider for example, Lynn and Dave Frohnmayer. In 1983 their two daughters Kirsten, then ten and Katie four, were diagnosed with Fanconi anemia, a rare and life-threatening recessive genetic illness. Two years after they received that news Lynn and Dave founded an FA Family Support Group to help share disease and treatment information with other families afflicted by the same illness. Their third daughter, Amy, born two years after that in 1987, also inherited the disease. So two years following Amy’s birth they founded the Fanconi Anemia Research Fund. It was soon after that, I believe, that Dave Frohnmayer spoke at Sheldon. I have no idea what his topic was, but at some point I know he mentioned the research fund and how passionate he and Lynn were about the research happening because of it. Later, over lunch in the science office, the members of our department decided we wanted to contribute to the fund, and did so. I’ve been giving annually ever since. I was terribly sad when Katie died in 1991 at age 12, followed by Kirsten in 1997 at 24. At the same time I’ve been extremely impressed over the years with the progress that has been made in treating this illness, leading to longer and longer lives for those afflicted with it. Indeed Amy, the youngest Frohnmayer daughter, outlived her father, who died suddenly in 2015, living herself until 2016 when she died at age 29.

 Today, eight years after losing her last daughter, Lynn Frohnmayer continues to be actively involved with the organization that she and Dave founded. For years I’ve received a hand written message from her on the thank you slash tax donation letter I receive in response to my donations. Bear in mind I’m not a major donor, so I’ve found it amazing over the years that Lynn would take the time to do that. Now I should mention there wasn’t such a note this year, a little card with the letter explained, because while playing soccer on cement last summer, at age 81, this is clearly my kind of woman! Lynn fell and dislocated bones in her hand, and hasn’t yet regained the ability to write legibly. While I’ve never had the privilege of meeting Lynn Frohnmayer, I feel in a way like I know her. Her cause has become my cause, which I believe is often how call works. When we’re passionate about something, our enthusiasm can be contagious, directly or indirectly inviting others to come and see. Very few of us ever manage to do anything on the scale of founding something like the Fanconi Anemia Research Fund. That doesn’t mean that what we’re doing with our lives is unimportant, nor does it mean we can ignore what is at once an opportunity and a responsibility to share with others the gifts God has given us when such an opportunity arises.

 The paradox of saying yes to God is that it can be at once deeply fulfilling and utterly terrifying. Think of poor Samuel who was faced with sharing some really bad news with Eli first thing the next morning, before he had had a chance to even begin to internalize what it meant that God had spoken to him. But God was with him that first morning, and throughout his life. I truly believe if we are responding to a call from God, then God will help us do what needs to be done. I remember well the summer of 2009 when I was struggling to lead the Standing Committee, who was in turn leading the diocese, because we were without a diocesan bishop. +Neff Powell was in town visiting at the time, and when I said something about my self doubts at being able to handle everything I was faced with managing +Neff replied that sometimes God calls those who are equipped, and sometimes God equips those who are called. Either way, God’s will gets done.

 Beyond being frightening, saying yes to God can also be wildly inconvenient, if not utterly life changing. The men whom Jesus called to follow him gave up everything, their homes, their families, their livelihoods in order to take off with a man who appeared to be at the outset a pretty ordinary person. Yet somehow they knew that this was not an ordinary person, and they knew they were meant to follow him. My dad gave up a promising career in business in order to go to seminary, and he was a very lucky man that my mom stuck with him when he did so because I absolutely do not believe she would have married him had she known beforehand that he wanted to be a priest. The last thing on earth my mother wanted to be was the rector’s wife. But that’s part of who she was indirectly called to be, and in her own way she filled the role well.

 So how do we know that the call we’re responding to is from God? There are a lot of voices out there after all, calling us to follow them. It can seem at times like there are a lot of voices in here calling us as well. I believe that if a call is truly from God, it will draw us outside ourselves, it will make us better people because it will deepen our understanding of who and whose we are as we respond to that call. My father taught me that when we’re baptized each of us is set aside to be a saint. That doesn’t mean we’re going to show up in a stained glass window or have a church named for us. It means we’ve become one of the countless people down through time who have been committed by virtue of the promises we made, or that were made on our behalf, to following Jesus, to being part of the Jesus movement. We are people committed to looking for ways we can make a difference in the lives of those around us. That could be something as simple as smiling at someone we pass on the street. It could be as all encompassing as choosing a profession, a vocation that allows us to serve others throughout our lives. Saying Yes to God means responding as we will sing [as we sang] during the offertory, Here I am, Lord. It is I, Lord. I have heard you calling in the night. I will go, Lord, if you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart. Amen.

Let us pray: Come Holy Spirit, inhabit these words, may they bring comfort to your people as we await the coming of your Son our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Comfort, O comfort my people. YES please! What a time, what a need for comfort we all have in our world today. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, the prophet Isaiah says. Speak tenderly to these United States and to this world we live in as we approach the new year, two thousand twenty-four. Cry to her that her time of suffering, pain, and violence have been served, the penalty paid, enough. Enough bad news, devastation and despair. We’ve already had a double portion. Into this darkness and pain a voice cries out:

In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord. In the fierce and ferocious times of our lives, our own wilderness wandering, we are to prepare, to get ready, to stay awake, and to watch for the comings of Christ into our lives.

Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Lay out a direct path, no swerving or meandering, a direct line for Christ to come to us. An amazing road crew, engineers and heavy machinery cutting a swath through the desert, that arid, dry and dangerous stretch will soon be easily crossed. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Those low times, those hard times will be brought up, those high mountain passes, those heights so hard to attain,

will be brought down to our level, no more struggle to huff and puff and slowly make our way up. Where once we had to be so careful, painstakingly placing each foot, now we can walk without thought on even ground. Those rough spots will be leveled out, smooth hiking. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together. God’s loving light and grace will be evident, shining brightly, an enormous beacon for ALL people to experience and approach together, united. This is what God, the Creator of the universe has said, and so it will be. Amen.

These are not the words, vision, and promise of men. No. Compared to God people are just like flowers or grass that withers and fades and is gone. These words of God are everlasting and they will never fade, indelible. Know this and rejoice. This is Good News! Get you up to a high mountain, lift up your voice with strength, be heralds of good tidings, do not fear; say to the cities of the world:

“Here is your God!” See, the Lord God comes with mighty arms that rule. And notice how this mighty God rules. Yes, God is all powerful, AND… God cares for us, God feeds us, like a shepherd cares for their flock; and God gathers the lambs and carries them in God’s bosom, and gently leads the mother sheep.

What lovely images of the powerful, almighty God AND the loving, nurturing, God who gathers us up in protecting arms, holding us close, feeding, and gently leading us.

These words of the prophet Isaiah were words of comfort for the people of Israel who had been destroyed by the Babylonians. Defeated in battle, they became an occupied nation, their holy temple desecrated and destroyed, forced to leave everything and everyone they had known and loved, exiled. Isaiah’s words for them are words of hope, words of God’s return. Words inviting them to prepare a highway for the Lord. Words promising them a path a path home, a path to peace, and to restoration. God will bring justice directly to them on a highway. Lifting up the low, bringing down the high, leveling the playing field, smoothing out the rough places. Then, then, God’s glory will be revealed and everyone, everyone, all together will see it and know. And Zion and Jerusalem are called to be heralds, to announce this good news to the cities of Judah and to all. The Mighty God is coming in power and in gentle, loving care.

This ancient message of hope for Israel reverberates into our time this Advent season. Just as it was a connecting message for Mark’s Gospel and the suffering people of his time, so it is for us and the suffering that we face.

Richard Ward, professor of preaching, connects this thread and charges the church with sharing this message of hope, he says:

Advent is a time to hear the promises spoken or sung to the community of faith once again and then sit with them through the season. It is also a time for that community to find its own voice, overcome its objections, and speak words of comfort and assurance to anyone who feels separated or abandoned by God, that God will arrive and will come in gentle power. (Ward, Richard F., Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 1, p. 31).

From Isaiah, to Mark, to John the Baptizer, to the first coming of the baby Jesus in Bethlehem, to this Advent season. We watch, and wait, and prepare. For surely our powerfully good and loving God is coming again. And again. And again.

Comfort, comfort your people. Speak tenderly to your beloveds, O God. In the wilderness of our lives, help us prepare the way for your coming in glory for all the world to see. Come Lord Jesus, come!

Amen.